Posted on Tue, Apr. 1, 2008
y Peter Dobrin
You don't notice the greatness at first. Yevgeniy Sharlat's
Piano Quartet, unveiled at an Astral concert Sunday, starts with melodies that must be deduced, almost like one of those pixelated puzzles whose image can only be seen if you stand back far enough.
But then patterns begin to emerge. You get the sense that material is being taken apart, put back together. Those patterns begin to emit a certain mood. And in places the mood grows quite emotional. I was particularly taken with the section in which the viola pizzicato accompanies a piano music-box part - only to be interrupted by a bright outburst, a contradiction, from the piano. Here you were sure the two instruments were saying something to each other.
Sharlat, born in Moscow and educated at Yale, Curtis and Juilliard, was commissioned to write his
Piano Quartet by Astral Artistic Services, and it might be one of the most compelling works to enter the chamber music literature in some time. His aesthetic is unique, and yet it evolves even during the course of the work. There's something creepy and generally disorienting about one movement, where nothing seems to resolve but rather merely relents when it gets taken over by another idea.
Sharlat creates a section in which the four instruments almost ignore each other. Their self-involvement might be complete, until you notice it's all adding up to a wonderful, rhythmically charged drone. And this is where the composer leaves you off, with a distinct Brahms-meets-Gorecki intensity.
The piece is dedicated to Andrius Zlabys, the impressive Astral pianist who recruited guest violinist Pavel Ilyashov, violist Anton Jivaev, and cellist Wendy Warner for this Philadelphia premiere at the Trinity Center (the world premiere was given Saturday night at a community music school in Trappe, Pa.).
The musicians played the new score with the kind of confidence that comes only with efficient rehearsing. Three of the players gave the local premiere of Dmitri Levkovich's
Piano Trio - the first movement of which was like a more impressionistic Rachmaninoff "Vocalise," with a second movement fugue on a rather Shostakovichian theme.
Astral also commissioned Luis Prado's
Piano Quintet, "Suite de Baile," infused with Spanish folk tunes and perhaps more cheery than some of the music audiences here might remember from the composer's days in Philadelphia (he lives in Madrid now).
Contact music critic Peter Dobrin at 215-854-5611 or pdobrin@phillynews.com. Read his blog at http://go.philly.com/artswatch.
